


Promises To Keep

by rosedokis



Category: Trinity Blood
Genre: Anime/Manga Catholicism, Blood and Injury, Caterina-centric, Chronic Illness, Death, Gen, Growing Up, Major Character Injury, Platonic Relationships, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Vampires, it's gonna get real sad lads, sorry there is no Abel/Caterina shipping here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2020-11-08 22:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosedokis/pseuds/rosedokis
Summary: "But I have promises to keep, and many miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost.A series of snapshots in the life of Cardinal Caterina Sforza from age fourteen, the time of her parents' death and meeting Abel Nightroad, and onward.





	1. An Uneven Trade For the Real World

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is dedicated to a friend, who encouraged me to write more for my favorite Trinity Blood character.

She sat across from him in the elegant sitting room of what had been her parents’ mansion in Milan – it is hers now – dressed in black lace and staring at him unflinchingly with a steely gaze that certainly held far less innocence than it did a few days prior. Understandable, given the circumstances of their meeting as well as all the preparations she had become caught up in for the large funeral that had been held earlier that day.

It had been a suitably somber affair and many ‘mourners’ had come from all over Milan and even other cities and countries to pay their respects to the late Duke and Duchess – her mother and the man she had called father. She had received many customary comfort gifts of food, drink, and bouquets. The chapel had been bedecked with hundreds of thousands of flowers. And, through it all, the fourteen-year-old had remained the picture of a dutiful heiress and a daughter in quiet, restrained mourning; not a hair or expression out of place. Not a single soul had seen her cry or shed a tear all through the vigil, the mass, or the reception afterwards.

The silence stretched on as Lady Caterina Sforza, the Duchess of Milan, waited to see if her silver-haired companion had anything to say. When he made no move to speak, not even to touch the tea that had been set out on the tray situated on the low table between then, she decided to fill the silence herself.

“What shall I call you?”

Finally, he deigned to look up at her face, his brows knitting in slight confusion.

“What?”

Caterina pursed her lips in slight annoyance at his reply and his tone before standing and moving around the table to come closer to him, her heeled shoes making a _tap! tap! tap!_ noise upon the floor as she went. She came to a stop a few feet in front of him and he found it strange how she could stand to be so close to him after what she had witnessed down in the catacombs. She had seen his true form and a mere fraction of the carnage and death he was capable of creating. Though he had acted to save her life, the violence had created a rather grisly scene afterwards.

But before he could lose himself to painful, dark reminiscence as he was wont to do, Caterina spoke again, bringing him back to the current reality.

“If we are to work together, I need to call you by a name,” she replied, crossing her arms in front of her and tapping her foot impatiently. “How am I to introduce you to other people?”

His mouth opened and closed a few times, a bit lost for words until he finally got his bearings again, still looking unsure of himself and particularly doubtful.

“Does my name really matter all that much?”

Now it was her turn to knit her brows in confusion. Caterina stared at the man again, giving him a look that implied that she either thought him a bit of an imbecile or that he was considerably out of touch with everything to do with society. It occurred to her that it might be a little bit of both. Hopefully, less of the former and more of the latter.

“Well, yes. You are a person, aren’t you?” she responded, raising a single brow. “I can’t very well introduce you as ‘someone who has come to save humanity’ as that won’t go over very well with other people. At best, you’ll be mocked and laughed at. At worst, they’ll throw you in prison as a madman or a possible heretic.”

The man turned his gaze, icy blue like a lake in winter, towards her face to look at her properly this time. From the moment they had met on that fateful, bloody night she had not been what he had expected at all. Even now, at a mere glance, she was just a slip of a girl, just barely beginning to shed the prettiness of childhood and take on the beauty of womanhood, with all the elegance and privilege of the upper class. Carefully arranged and curled golden hair, a poised and elegant bearing, and surrounded by luxury and wealth -- he had thought she’d be spoiled, naïve, or, like many of the noble class, that she’d regard those of the lower classes as not worth her time. He had thought that she would shrink away from his own monstrosity.

But the newly-made Duchess had turned out to be someone quite different. If she flinched in fear that night it wasn’t from him, only the terror of almost losing her own life. And even afterwards she hadn’t let herself look overly shaken by the experience; though, who knows what she allowed herself to express when she was alone in the privacy of her own rooms at the end of each day? Instead of collapsing into misery she rose up to meet it with determination and quiet ferocity that was rare to see in someone of her young age and standing.

The man’s uncertainty played out upon his handsome features upon being referred to as ‘a person’; no wearer of emotional masks was he at this point in time. It was strange to him to be thought of in this way, to have his personhood automatically taken into consideration. He was not blind to what he was and what he was capable of doing. Even from the very beginning, he had not granted the same respects as other people, not that his attitude had helped with that. Anyone who did otherwise was now gone or quite out of his reach. And nine-hundred years alone in a tomb with nothing and no one for company aside from all his regrets hadn’t exactly served him well as far as human interaction went.

But here the Duchess stood, asking his name as if it mattered to her, as if he wasn’t the monster she had seen in the catacombs that day.

Despite all his confusion and scattered thoughts, he finally managed a reply.

“My name? My name… is Abel. Abel Knightlo—”

He paused. No, that surname didn’t feel right anymore, not after everything that had happened. And if he was going to step into the world of the living once more, past things needed remain buried for both of their sakes. Hadn’t he promised Lilith that he would change his ways?

“Nightroad. Call me Abel Nightroad,” he finished at last, his gaze finally meeting hers for the first time that evening.

“Abel Nightroad,” Caterina repeated back, turning the name over in her mouth before allowing a small smile to appear on her lips, the first genuine emotion she’s shown all evening. She then extended her gloved right hand out to him, palm down. “Well, Abel, in company you are to refer to me as ‘Lady Caterina’ and call me by the same thing or ‘Your Grace’. But with only us two, you can just call me Caterina. In fact, I’d prefer it if you did.”

“Yes, Lady Ca-- I mean, Miss Caterina.”

Abel glanced back and forth between her face and her hand before taking it gently in his own and bowing his head respectfully in lieu of a proper bow, seeing as he was still seated. When she took her hand back he finally got a better look at her face. Though the smile was still there he could see dark circles beginning to appear under her eyes and a few non-permanent lines forming here and there, belying her inner exhaustion. A note of sympathy formed in his eyes and he did frown a little in concern. She had already been through so much in just a few short days; the violent death of her parents resulting in her becoming an orphan, the funeral, all the arrangements and plans for her future that she had managed to brainstorm up thus far with and without his input…

“I’m going to need all your help for everything that comes next, Abel,” she spoke softly, allowing some of her weariness to bleed into her voice. “So, I hope I can come to rely on you and that you can trust me to do the best I can to meet you halfway and then some. You don’t have to fight alone anymore.”

For the first time in over nine-hundred years, the corners of his lips twitched upwards until they formed a small smile and tenderness permeated the depths of his blue eyes. A moment of something akin to tenderness passed between them; a soft prelude to the unknown of the future.

But the moment was ruined by a knock at the door and the mask of propriety formed on Caterina’s pretty features once more.

“Come in,” she called out and the waiting maid opened the door and curtsied. “Yes, what is it?”

“Begging your pardon for interrupting you and your guest, Lady Caterina, but a message has just arrived to be delivered to your hands from the Vatican. It bears the seal of the His Holiness, the Pope.”


	2. The Game Is Set

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Caterina and Abel talk of her family and Caterina makes her first move.

Abel looked up when she entered the room and found himself lost for words as the look on her face changed from its usual mask of steely indifference to undisguised annoyance and, perhaps, a bit of worry as the door closed behind her. She stepped up to him, as if she had something to say before moving past him in silence to pace the room, her heels making a pointed _clack! clack! clack!_ sound with each step. Eyes the color of a winter lake followed her form for minutes – _back and forth, back and forth_ – until even he got tired of playing the waiting game. He stood and stepped up to her until his tall, gangly form blocked her path.

“Lady Caterina.”

Caterina stopped her pacing and looked up until the winter lake was met by cold steel. She held his gaze unwavering for a moment before the mask dropped and she let out a tired sigh. Abel’s brows furrowed as he shifted his gaze away from hers and he stood there somewhat awkwardly until she finally spoke.

“Haven’t I told you to call me Caterina when it’s just the two of us?”

When he turned his gaze to her once more, she was smiling up at him but he could see the temporary signs of weariness under her eyes. Even he could tell that the smile was borne from effort. After all these months, Abel had not failed to notice how she increasingly and steadfastly guarded her own thoughts and emotions around other people, himself included. Perhaps, that was because he often did the same.

But if they were to work together, he needed to know where she stood.

“My apologies, Caterina. How did it go? Your meeting with the His Holiness and… the Duke of Florence and Tuscany?”

“You mean my half-brother, Francesco de Medici,” she replied shortly with no small amount of disdain in her voice. “It went as well as could be expected. His Holiness welcomed me as his daughter and made it a point that I would henceforth be treated with the honor owed to a child of the Pope. I also have another half-brother, though he is too young for such meetings now. It’s clear that His Holiness, my father, expects great things from him.”

Caterina clasped her hands behind her and stepped over to the window, looking out to the courtyard of her estate with that same troubled, pensive look. Abel remained in place, one brow raised; not fooled at all by her cut-and-dry recap. She was holding something back and while he was not keen on making her speak of things that obviously bothered her, she had told him that he could speak freely when they were alone.

“And?”

Caterina sighed again and turned back to face him, a hint of a smile appearing on her face once more. So, she couldn’t hide everything from him. In these past few months, she had grown close to Abel, the one person she felt she could always count on. Slowly, but surely, she was opening up to him, sharing her thoughts and feelings and leaning on him for support when needed. And, as it turned out, despite his outwardly awkward and solemn appearance, aspects of his personality, thoughts, and feelings were becoming known to her as well.

“Francesco... I don’t like him.”

“Don’t like him?” Abel asked with a tilt of his head. “Why not?”

Caterina’s hands curled into fists behind her back and that fearsome coldness appeared in her steely eyes once more. “He spoke little to me but made it clear where he stood. Everything he thinks, everything he aims for and wants to accomplish is dangerous. He’s a man who believes only in absolutes and hungers for war as a way to appease his own sense of justice. The people of this world are enjoying a tenuous, hard won peace and even that threatens to collapse. And yet, he would have a holy war with the vampires again in the name of God, knowing full well that his militant piety will cost many innocent lives with no guarantee of ending the guilty ones… He is my family but it’s clear that he will also become an enemy to me.”

For the second time in the space of a few minutes, Abel found himself lost for words. If he learned anything about Caterina so far, it’s that she can be somewhat terrifying in the face of a perceived threat. Her ire was not explosive and volatile in the way his own could be. Rather, it was like a viper, venomous and poised to strike back with a vengeance at the opportune moment. Heaven help whoever dared to stand in her way or work against her.

If she were to go up against Francesco, whose willpower seemed to be just as strong as her own… surely the path to their shared goal had just gotten all the more dangerous. He would have to keep a closer eye on her from now on. He promised months ago to be her sword. _What is a sword without a shield?_

“What will you do?” he asked, concern making small lines on his ageless features. Of course, she likely already had some sort of plan. Caterina was smart and shrewd enough – she had skipped many grades all throughout her schooling and was enrolled in a University at the age of fourteen -- to try and stay one step ahead of her enemies; and goodness knows, she already has many, both known and unknown as of yet.

Silence followed his query as Caterina moved away from the window and seated herself upon an ornate, velvet-lined armchair, crossing her ankles to the side underneath her and resting her elegant, gloved hands upon her knees. She stared at the chessboard in front of her and the remnants of their unfinished, ongoing game. Slowly, she reached out and took hold of the Queen’s piece, holding it up in front of her, as if studying it intensely.

“I’ve taken the liberty of sending a letter to request a transfer from the Milan Research Institute to the University of Rome and to ask that you be granted an admission as well.”

Abel’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open in surprise. He stammered out a few unintelligible words before taking a deep breath to calm himself down enough to try again.

“Th-The University of Rome?! Caterina, you’re only a year or so away from graduation. What are you thinking? And me? I haven’t even been to actual school-- … in a very long time. What use could I possibly be to you in taking classes there?”

As if what he had been through hundreds of years ago could even really be called ‘attending school’.

Caterina looked up at him seriously and calmly gestured with her free hand to the other armchair across from her. Abel obliged by seating himself in it, both feet firmly on the floor and leaning forward expectantly with his forearms resting upon his knees. She noticed that that puzzled, anxious look appeared on his face again and she tried to appease him by offering a calm, reassuring smile.

“Even with the two of us working together, I don’t think it’s enough. I don’t have enough power as just a Duchess. There are places I can’t go and things I can’t do or even ask you to do with the influence I have currently. I don’t doubt your strength, Abel, but I need to fill in the gaps somehow… So, I’m going to become a member of the clergy, as are you, Abel. I’ve already done most of the general coursework that is required and so that shouldn’t take me too long at all. You, on the other hand, will have to start from scratch.”

Abel looked like she had just swallowed one of the two Moons.

“You… want me to become a priest?” he asked incredulously. How ironic, he thought, that someone like him, with the blood of millions on his hands, could even _think_ of becoming a man of God. But when he looked at Caterina, she seemed dead serious about it.

“Yes, I do. My brother is already a bishop and I intend to catch up to him,” she replied, matter-of-factly, turning over the Queen in her hands. “If I’m to oppose him, I’ll have to. And I’ll need you to be able to work alongside me without people questioning it. Besides, I think you might even learn a few things while becoming a priest. I know it’s asking a lot of you, especially since you’ve said you don’t have an opinion on God.”

That was an understatement, to say the least. If God existed, he had _more_ than just an opinion about Him. But he had merely shrugged it off when she asked him about it in order to keep his anger at bay. Such subjects were touchy for him but that wasn’t her fault.

“I suppose… But, Caterina, you know the Church doesn’t allow women to become bishops.”

Caterina’s smile did not waver and she looked completely unbothered by this fact. Instead, she stretched out her arm and placed her Queen onto a new square on the board. So close to a checkmate! But, not yet.

_Not yet, but soon._

“I know. But I am now the acknowledged daughter of Pope Gregorio XXX and that will make all the difference. I will make sure of that.”

Abel looked back and forth between the chessboard and her face and allowed himself to lean further into the back of his chair. So, this was it then; her mind was made up and it was clear that no one and nothing would stop her, not even family. Their path would be fraught with peril and yet she will walk upon it willingly with determination that he had seen in very few individuals over his extended years of life.

It was terrifying yet admirable. Abel felt then that he had made no mistake in choosing her to become the one to lead the way down the road to either victory or destruction. She would not go down without a fight and, he found, that if she was so willing to do this then, he would support her and follow along gladly.

Finally, Abel met her gaze with his own and nodded seriously.

“Alright, I will go with you.”

Caterina’s features softened and her smile grew brighter. For this brief moment, she looked like the young lady she was, brimming with gratitude and sentiment.

“Thank you, Abel. I knew I could count on you. Know that you can count on me as well.”

Abel’s serious, pensive look gave way to a smile of his own as he moved one of his own chess pieces on the board.

“And, Abel?”

“Yes, Caterina?”

Her smile turned a bit impish as she moved her Queen again. _Checkmate!_

“Don’t slack off.”

Abel let out a groan and then, for the first time in a long time, laughed.


End file.
